asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if any new agreement has been made with the Government of Northern Ireland or Great Britain in respect of benefit under the Unemployment Insurance Acts.
CEISTEANNA—QUESTIONS. ORAL ANSWERS. - UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACTS.
TOMAS MAC EOIN
The reply to this question is somewhat lengthy. I have, therefore, handed a written reply to the Deputy, which will appear in the Official Report.
[WRITTEN REPLY.]
The following is a summary of the history of reciprocal arrangements in respect of Unemployment Insurance with the Governments of Great Britain and Northern Ireland:—
(1) When the Government of Saorstát Eireann took over from the British Government in April, 1922, the administration of the Unemployment Insurance Acts a separate Unemployment Fund under the Unemployment Insurance Acts was automatically established in Saorstát Eireann into which were paid all the contributions payable under those Acts in respect of employment in Saorstát Eireann, and out of which was payable the unemployment benefit to which the insured contributors thereafter became entitled under the provisions of those Acts. In the interests of insured contributors and to minimise the inconvenience of the transition, arrangements known as "reciprocal arrangements" were made between the Provisional Government and the Governments of Great Britain and Northern Ireland by which contributions paid in either country were recognised in the other for the purpose of determining the amount of benefit to which an insured contributor was entitled. Further, each country regarded employment in an insurable occupation in the other as satisfying the condition for the receipt of "uncovenanted" benefit which was then in operation.
(2) After this reciprocal arrangement had been made, a careful inquiry was made into the financial liability in which it involved the Saorstát, and it was found to be disproportionately costly to this country. Considerable numbers of our population were accustomed to cross every year to Great Britain, where they worked in insurable occupations and had contributions under the Unemployment Insurance Acts paid for them. These people, when their employment terminated, returned to their homes in this country, and claimed unemployment benefit against the contributions paid, not into the Unemployment Fund of this country, but into that of Great Britain. The result was that the whole burden of paying benefit fell on this country in respect of contributions all of which had been paid into the Fund of Great Britain. The numbers of persons in respect of whom this liability fell on the Saorstát was, so far as could be estimated, about 14,000. There was practically no compensation by way of similar migration of British workers to this country. The attention of the Minister of Labour in Great Britain was called to the inequality of the burdens which the arrangement involved and they were asked to consider a financial adjustment. Our concrete proposal was that there should be transferred to the Unemployment Fund of the country which paid benefit the proportionate value of the contributions received by the other country. Methods for ascertaining without undue trouble the liability under such an arrangement as this were suggested to the Ministry of Labour in London, but that Department was disinclined to adopt any method involving it in any trouble at all. Correspondence proceeded over a great part of 1922, and early in 1923 a conference to consider the matter was held in London. At that conference, the British side did agree in principle to a reciprocal arrangement involving a financial adjustment; admitted that the adjustment would always necessitate a payment to the Irish Free State; made the reservation that any arrangements made should operate only for a limited period in which the basis could be tested by actual experience; and contemplated that the best arrangement would be the payment to the Saorstát of an annual lump sum representing the excess of unexhausted contributions in the British Fund paid by Saorstát workers over the unexhausted contributions of British workers in the Unemployment fund of this country. The Ministry of Labour, however, required further information as to the approximate numbers of persons, periods of employment, etc., involved, and after examination of all available data, we duly forwarded an estimate showing that the contributions paid in Great Britain for these migratory workers would amount to about £17,700 per annum. It was suggested that a reciprocal arrangement should be concluded based on this sum. Eventually the Ministry of Labour refused to make any arrangement involving financial adjustment and has not since indicated any change in its attitude.
3. Special circumstances affect the relation of merchant seamen to this question. Merchant seamen resident in the Saorstát but employed on British ships are excluded from insurance and do not pay contributions, though their employers do. The same applies to British seamen employed on ships owned in the Saorstát. By reciprocal arrangements these seamen could be brought under the Unemployment Insurance Acts. Their position, then, would be that while employed on ships registered in Great Britain or Northern Ireland, or ships (not registered in the Saorstát) owned in Great Britain or Northern Ireland, their contributions would be paid not into the Unemployment Fund of the Saorstát but into that of Great Britain or Northern Ireland, and they would be entitled to benefit in the Saorstát only to the extent provided for by the reciprocal arrangements. It is roughly estimated that the number of persons domiciled in the Saorstát normally employed on British ships is about 12,000, while those domiciled in Great Britain and employed on Saorstát ships are only about 1,000. Assuming that these men are employed for nine months out of twelve, it would require a contribution of about £34,000 per annum from the British to the Saorstát Fund to give them the full right to benefit in the Saorstát proportionate to their periods of employment. As Great Britain has already refused to make any such arrangement involving financial adjustment, there seems little prospect that the merchant seamen of this country who work on British ships can be brought within the Unemployment Insurance Acts on any reasonable fair basis.
4. While the reciprocal arrangements to which reference is made in the first paragraph were being maintained by this country and Great Britain, we became aware, towards the end of last year, that the Northern Government had, about July, 1923, terminated those arrangements without notice to us. While we were still paying benefit on contributions paid to the Northern Government the Ministry of Labour in Belfast were refusing to pay benefit on contributions paid in the Saorstát. Soldiers of the National Army who, after demobilisation, returned to their homes in the Six Counties, were refused covenanted benefit in respect of contributions paid in the Free State, and had their service in the Army treated, in effect, as a disqualification for uncovenanted benefit. In order to obtain some benefit for these ex-members of the National Army we had to pay their contributions to the Northern Ministry. The attitude of the Northern Government towards the question of reciprocal arrangements with the Saorstát seems to be to make it a condition that unemployment insurance legislation by the Oireachtas must follow that of Northern Ireland before any such arrangement will be considered.
5. At a meeting which I had with the Northern Minister for Labour early last summer he brought up the position of insured contributors resident along the border who, when unemployed, could not obtain unemployment benefit because their residence was outside the jurisdiction in which they had worked and paid their contributions. He suggested that officials of both Governments should consult as to whether these difficulties could not be removed, to which I readily agreed. But the only reply my Department can get to its communications on the matter is "the matter is under consideration but no satisfactory proposals have been evolved." No proposal of any description has since been made.
6. The action of the Northern Government in terminating the reciprocal arrangement which was in operation in 1923, and the refusal of the British Government to vary so as to avoid the Saorstát being liable for the whole of the burden of unemployment benefit in respect of contributions it did not receive, left us no alternative but to bring those arrangements to an end. This was done from the 29th June last, on the basis that no country could take any account of contributions paid after the 1st July, 1923, into any fund but its own. Consequently we are not now paying benefit in this country in respect of any contributions paid since the 1st July, 1923, outside the Saorstát.
7. We are willing to enter into arrangements which will be truly reciprocal, but we cannot regard any proposal as satisfactory which does not provide that we shall have the contributions or their equivalent in any case in which we are expected to pay benefit. Since the stamps used for the payment of contributions in Great Britain and Northern Ireland are identical in design, and it would not be possible by examination of unemployment books to say which of the two Governments received the contributions represented by the stamps on the book, it would scarcely be possible to have an arrangement with one of those Governments alone.
I have communicated the above summary to the Northern Minister of Labour, telling him that I proposed to give it publicity. He has replied to the effect that in the absence of a formal reciprocity agreement he did not feel justified in continuing any previous reciprocal arrangement, and that in his view the divergence between the unemployment insurance systems of Saorstát Eireann and Northern Ireland renders impossible a formal reciprocity agreement that would be equitable.
I think it will now be perfectly clear that I can go no further than I have gone in endeavouring to secure reciprocal arrangements within the limits imposed by the Unemployment Insurance Acts and that, while I am ready to enter into reciprocal arrangements and consider that a fair arrangement can be made on the basis indicated in paragraph 7 of the summary above, it is the other parties who say that reciprocity is impossible.